French voters begin casting ballots in presidential election

A woman casts her vote for the first-round presidential election at a polling station in Paris, Sunday, April 23, 2017. French voters are casting ballots for their next president in an unusually close first-round election Sunday, after a campaign dominated by concerns about jobs and immigration and clouded by security fears following a recent attack on police guarding the Champs-Elysees in Paris. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
(The Associated Press)

A man casts his vote for the first-round presidential election at a polling station in Paris, Sunday, April 23, 2017. French voters are casting ballots for their next president in an unusually close first-round election Sunday, after a campaign dominated by concerns about jobs and immigration and clouded by security fears following a recent attack on police guarding the Champs-Elysees in Paris. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
(The Associated Press)

A man picks a ballot paper before voting for the first-round presidential election at a polling station in Paris, Sunday, April 23, 2017. French voters are casting ballots for their next president in an unusually close first-round election Sunday, after a campaign dominated by concerns about jobs and immigration and clouded by security fears following a recent attack on police guarding the Champs-Elysees in Paris. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
(The Associated Press)

PARIS – French voters have begun casting ballots for the presidential election in a tense first-round poll that's seen as a test for the spread of populism around the world.

Over 60,000 polling stations opened Sunday at 0600 GMT for some 47 million eligible voters, who will choose between 11 candidates. It's the most unpredictable election in generations.

Polls suggest far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, were in the lead. But conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister, appeared to be closing the gap, as was far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.